The Economy

I lost my job in September*, so the recent run-up's been kind of nice. My bottom line's pretty much where it was that fateful day**.

*By having written 'em a letter in which I told 'em I was retiring.

**The day they quit depositing paychecks in my checking account.

 

I thank my wife every day for watching after our finances, but she obsesses to the point of it being unhealthy. She loves details and minutiae. I don't.
"How much did you pay for that floor molding we put in upstairs?" "I don't know, about $200, I think." "I need to know exactly to enter it into the spreadsheet." "Like I said, about $200, I think. What's it matter? I got it put in. That's what you wanted." "You don't know how much you paid?" "No. The f'ing receipt is behind my truck seat (along with about 10 others because that's what I do with receipts)." Stomp, stomp, stomp. Door opens and closes. "You paid $212.86." "Awesome. My life is now complete with that information. What do you want for supper?"

 

You are a brave man, my friend.

 

I'm in charge of the physical. She is in charge of the fiscal.

 

Forget diamonds. The greatest gift I provide for my wife is relieving her of the drudgery of, well, life.

Bills, insurance, taxes, pest control, car maintenance, veterinarian trips, registrations, etc.

She works her 40 hours and spends the rest of her time making things.

 

My wife and I are a perfect couple in terms of managing our life. We are each responsible for certain aspects of it and are good at it.
I'm the chainsaw. She's the scalpel.

 

When I bought our car two years ago I drove it to her store to show it to her. She asked why I didn't take her to help pick out the car.

"Because you would have said, 'I think the blue one looks prettier than the gray one.' "

 

This post actually made me feel good. Because I was just about to post how I really only check my finances, with any curiosity/interest, maybe once a year, usually around late October/November when I get a statement regarding my 401k. Otherwise, I barely think about my money at all.

That's probably not the best way to go about financial planning, I know. But I just don't know enough, and I'm not interested enough, to do much more than that. Maybe that will change as I approach retirement within the next 10 years. But for now, that's where I'm at.

 

I will say this, thanks to my wife, sometime shortly after tomorrow, she will fully fund both our Roth IRAs for the year.

 

Many decades ago when grocery stores actually had bag boys dressed in shirts, ties, pants, and store vests, I was taking a women's two buggies full of groceries out in a complete frickin deluge. "I don't know where my car is." "OK, ma'am. What kid of car do you have?" "It's blue." "OK, is a Ford, Chevy, what do you drive?" "I don't know all those details. My husband handles all that. I just know it's blue."
My head dropped, and I couldn't have been wetter if you'd thrown me in the river by the time we found this lady's car.

 

One of the things that really ticks me off about self-checkout is they will still only have one checker, no matter how big the back-up. Was at a grocery store today, saw that they weren't opening more check stands, returned my items and left.

I would love to go through a self-checkout line and act very clueless forcing the monitor to scan all my items and bag them. Then pay. haha.